Charles Johnson may or may not have been identical with the author of "Robinson Crusoe". He wrote in his "General History of the Pyrates" (second edition, 1724) of Monmouthshire Pirate Howel Davies, who had just mutinied and taken over the trading sloop Mumwil Trader in Martinique.
"After this, a counsel of war was called over a large bowl of punch, at which it was proposed to chuse a commander; the election was soon over, for it fell upon Davies by a great majority of legal pollers, there was no scrutiny demanded, for all acquiesced in the choice: as soon as we was possessed of his command, he drew up articles, which were signed and sworn to by himself and all the rest, then he made a short speech, the sum of which was, a declaration of war against all the world."
Davies eventually died, by treachery, on the island of Sao Tome, where he was "shot through the bowels". "Just as he fell, he perceived he was followed, and drawing out his pistols, fired them at his pursuers; thus like a game cock, giving a dying blow, that he might not fall unavenged."
Sunday 11 October 2009
Saturday 26 September 2009
Transparency in religious organisations
I read in wikipedia that "the AMORC (Ancient Mystical Order Rosea Crucis) Rosicrucians declare openly that they do not engage in sexual practices of an occult nature." This openness is to be welcomed. Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, take note.
Thursday 24 September 2009
Welsh Rosicrucians of the sixteenth century
Critics of wikipedia worry about the site's pernicious influence on research and discourse. A complete lack of editorial control means that information is unverified and often entirely unsubstantiated. Because of its inbuilt ease of accessibility and use, young people in particular are prone to over-reliance on it: distinctions between reliable and unreliable sources are neglected.
Those critics can jump in a lake. Without such "untrustworthy" websites I would know hardly any more now than I did this morning about the seafaring prowess of the Welsh.
In the sixteenth century, the royal court in London had not yet evolved into its modern, basically Scottish, form. Under the Tudors it was rather on the Welsh side. In 1578 John Dee, a London-born Welshman, mathematician, magician and proto-Rosicrucian, advised Elizabeth I on her own claims to North America, claims which were clearly prior and thus superior to those of the upstart Spanish.
Elizabeth's claims would have been poor indeed if supported only by the adventures of Saxon sailors. As Dee assured her, King Arthur had conquered Frisland (as in "Freezeland", a sort of confused amalgam of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroes) and had sailed west to "Estotiland", what we now think of as Labrador.
Later, in 1170, Madoc, the son of the king of Wales, and the first Adam of the "moon-eyed" Welshmen of Fort Mountain, Georgia, mentioned in the previous post, had explored the entire east coast of the present-day United States, down to Florida. Indeed the Madoc story seems largely to have been propagated by an alliance of Rosicrucians and Angl0-Welsh imperialists. The Rosicrucian connection is something I really must mull over.
I am happy to report that there is no danger that the internet will fail us in these researches. That is guaranteed by the fact that the story involves pirates, and Welsh pirates enjoy internet exposure at least equal to that enjoyed by pirates of other nations.
This information has been gleaned mostly from an essay, "Welsh Wizard and British Empire", by Glyn A. Williams. Williams also passes on a joke which reliably got the Tudor court going. Heaven was filling up with Welshmen, much to the discomfiture of those already installed. So St Peter hired an angel to stand outside the gates and shout "Rarebit".
Those critics can jump in a lake. Without such "untrustworthy" websites I would know hardly any more now than I did this morning about the seafaring prowess of the Welsh.
In the sixteenth century, the royal court in London had not yet evolved into its modern, basically Scottish, form. Under the Tudors it was rather on the Welsh side. In 1578 John Dee, a London-born Welshman, mathematician, magician and proto-Rosicrucian, advised Elizabeth I on her own claims to North America, claims which were clearly prior and thus superior to those of the upstart Spanish.
Elizabeth's claims would have been poor indeed if supported only by the adventures of Saxon sailors. As Dee assured her, King Arthur had conquered Frisland (as in "Freezeland", a sort of confused amalgam of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroes) and had sailed west to "Estotiland", what we now think of as Labrador.
Later, in 1170, Madoc, the son of the king of Wales, and the first Adam of the "moon-eyed" Welshmen of Fort Mountain, Georgia, mentioned in the previous post, had explored the entire east coast of the present-day United States, down to Florida. Indeed the Madoc story seems largely to have been propagated by an alliance of Rosicrucians and Angl0-Welsh imperialists. The Rosicrucian connection is something I really must mull over.
I am happy to report that there is no danger that the internet will fail us in these researches. That is guaranteed by the fact that the story involves pirates, and Welsh pirates enjoy internet exposure at least equal to that enjoyed by pirates of other nations.
This information has been gleaned mostly from an essay, "Welsh Wizard and British Empire", by Glyn A. Williams. Williams also passes on a joke which reliably got the Tudor court going. Heaven was filling up with Welshmen, much to the discomfiture of those already installed. So St Peter hired an angel to stand outside the gates and shout "Rarebit".
How Green Was My Prairie
Every now and again, someone will come to me and say "now this is the strangest thing you have ever heard". They are always wrong. The strangest thing I have ever heard is "Santa Claus is coming to town" as performed by Joseph Spence of the Bahamas.
One of Joseph's closest rivals is the history of the European reception of pre-Colombian architecture in what is now the United States and Canada. European explorers in the early eighteenth century found a variety of structures, including cities, forts and ceremonial and burial sites, many of them large and sophisticated. But the local natives often denied all knowledge of their purpose and origin.
The interesting thing is that many of these structures were at that time very recent. Historians today speculate that the civilisations responsible for them had been destroyed by European diseases which had travelled into the North American interior faster than the Europeans themselves. But the newcomers were convinced that native Americans could not be responsible for them, and speculated as to other possible origins.
The great city at Cahokia, Illinoia (the population of which may have reached 40,000, greater than any American city at independence) was attributed to the Vikings. Other sites were taken as evidence that North America had been settled before the fifteenth century, indeed as early as 1170, by settlers from Wales.
John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee, claimed in the early 1800s that a Cherokee elder had told him that the pre-Colombian fort at Fort Mountain, Georgia, had been built by Welsh-speakers. Indeed, a Welshman named John Evans, of Waun Fawr, had already set off in search of Welsh-speaking Indians in the Mississippi valley. Evans produced some important maps before dying in New Orleans, in the palace of the governor of New Spain, in 1799.
Apart from his early death and failure to find the Welsh-speaking Indians, the great tragedy of John Evans's life is that the governor in whose palace he died was not Dublin-born Field Marshal Alejandro O'Reilly, who had himself died in 1794, at the age of 72, leading his troops against the French in the Pyrenees.
The above information is derived from "Ecological Imperialism" by Alfred W. Crosby, Prys Morgan's essay "The Hunt for the Welsh Past in the Romantic Period", and the world wide interweb. It may or may not now become my aim to make this site a leading provider of trustworthy information on John Evans of Waun Fawr, Welsh-speaking Indians and/or Field Marshal Alejandro O'Reilly.
One of Joseph's closest rivals is the history of the European reception of pre-Colombian architecture in what is now the United States and Canada. European explorers in the early eighteenth century found a variety of structures, including cities, forts and ceremonial and burial sites, many of them large and sophisticated. But the local natives often denied all knowledge of their purpose and origin.
The interesting thing is that many of these structures were at that time very recent. Historians today speculate that the civilisations responsible for them had been destroyed by European diseases which had travelled into the North American interior faster than the Europeans themselves. But the newcomers were convinced that native Americans could not be responsible for them, and speculated as to other possible origins.
The great city at Cahokia, Illinoia (the population of which may have reached 40,000, greater than any American city at independence) was attributed to the Vikings. Other sites were taken as evidence that North America had been settled before the fifteenth century, indeed as early as 1170, by settlers from Wales.
John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee, claimed in the early 1800s that a Cherokee elder had told him that the pre-Colombian fort at Fort Mountain, Georgia, had been built by Welsh-speakers. Indeed, a Welshman named John Evans, of Waun Fawr, had already set off in search of Welsh-speaking Indians in the Mississippi valley. Evans produced some important maps before dying in New Orleans, in the palace of the governor of New Spain, in 1799.
Apart from his early death and failure to find the Welsh-speaking Indians, the great tragedy of John Evans's life is that the governor in whose palace he died was not Dublin-born Field Marshal Alejandro O'Reilly, who had himself died in 1794, at the age of 72, leading his troops against the French in the Pyrenees.
The above information is derived from "Ecological Imperialism" by Alfred W. Crosby, Prys Morgan's essay "The Hunt for the Welsh Past in the Romantic Period", and the world wide interweb. It may or may not now become my aim to make this site a leading provider of trustworthy information on John Evans of Waun Fawr, Welsh-speaking Indians and/or Field Marshal Alejandro O'Reilly.
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